The definitive biography of our 28th President

Born in Virginia in 1856 to a Presbyterian minister of modest means, Thomas Woodrow Wilson first flowered as an academic. He joined the faculty of Princeton University in 1890, became one of the school’s most beloved professors and was elevated to its presidency 12 years later. Throughout this period of intensive teaching and public lecturing, he published a torrent of magazine articles...

The life of a noted wordsmith

In fleshing out the creator of Roget's Thesaurus, writer Joshua Kendall faces something of a dramatic and structural problem: How does one enliven and sustain interest in a man who didn't make his major intellectual contribution until he was 73 years old? The man in question is Peter Mark Roget, a physician by training and a wordsmith by choice. Kendall ties his chronicle together by...

A birthday he won't soon forget

On the cold January eve of Stanley Alpert's 38th birthday, three young and impressively armed thugs whisked him off a Greenwich Village street and into a menacing black Lexus. After stopping at an ATM to sample his bank account, the hoodlums drove the frightened U.S. attorney to a Brooklyn apartment, intending to relax there until the next day, when they planned to steal Alpert's stash...

History made in a hurry

CBS News' Bob Schieffer relives his life on deadline From James Meredith's fiery admission to the University of Mississippi in 1962 to the recent take-down of Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, Bob Schieffer has worked at the wellsprings of America's political history. It's often been history made in a hurry. The veteran CBS News correspondent had the unenviable job of deciphering the voluminous...